Book-Smart and Street-Smart
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: After the week of initial partying, Rapunzel panics when she learns that she's about to undergo royal training to be a princess. She runs to the library with Pascal and bemoans her lack of education in the tower. Eugene pops in and helps her write out a list showing just how much she already knows and how smart she really is. R/E Fluff.


_**Soli Deo Gloria**_

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not OWN Tangled.  
**

Rapunzel stared at the pile of books she'd pulled from the palace library. Huge and dusty, it would take several weeks to read them through, never mind study them and analyze them. She groaned and looked at Pascal. He sat on her desk; he patted her folded arms sympathetically.

"Pascal, how am I ever going to be prepared enough for tomorrow?" Rapunzel whispered softly.

When she'd been reunited with her parents, the least of her worries was if she was smart enough to be a princess. But after the week of partying and getting settled into her brand-new home, the time had come. At luncheon today her parents, the king and queen, had announced that she would start princess-training tomorrow. (And Eugene would start learning the ins and outs of Corona's administrative governing system, but he garnered little sympathy from anyone else but himself.) A series of professors and tutors would come in succession and assess her intelligence in several different areas of knowledge. From this, they would know where to start from in finishing her education.

Rapunzel tried as best she could to not reveal to her parents just how _panicked_ she was. But after luncheon was over, she'd grabbed Pascal and rushed to the library in the palace. They'd grabbed a book covering every subject. Pascal had been crushed by two books he carried at once.

Now Rapunzel realized the enormity of the task she was undertaking; there were too many subjects, some of which she'd only heard of. Others she owned only a good enough learning of. Amongst the ones she'd been exposed to were astronomy, some arithmetic, botany, cooking, reading, and some science. She'd observed animal behaviors and habits by living with Pascal for some years. But oh! there must be so much more to know than that to be a well-educated princess!

A figure stole into the library quietly; Rapunzel didn't hear the footsteps, and Pascal only turned his head when he saw a shadow travel over the floor.

"Why so sad-looking, Blondie? By the way, is it still appropriate that I call you that now? I mean," and Eugene drew out a chair next to her and sat down, "you're a brunette now. Also, I think your dad is silently criticizing me every time I call you that in front of your parents."

Rapunzel couldn't help her smile; his easy humor made it easy to smile. "Well, Eugene, first off—I think Dad's just happy that we're both here. Don't worry about my nickname."

He played with a little lock of her pretty brown hair; his face was absentminded. "Okay, whatever you say." He sighed and sobered up. "Seriously, though. What's troubling you?"

Rapunzel sighed and waved a hand to the pile of panic in front of her. "Look at all these books! I'm trying to study to make up for _twelve years_ of no education. How can I be expected to rule a kingdom when I have never read any of these?"

Eugene picked up a book at random and flipped quickly through it. It was a math book, full of concepts, theories, and illustrations that didn't have a whole lot of numbers, for it being a math. One simple flip-through made his own head spin. "Okay, so I think you brought down literally _every_ high level book from this library's shelves. I mean, come on! This is like, advanced university level stuff!"

"So? I'm supposed to know it by now," Rapunzel said.

"Blondie," Eugene said, facing her, "you're starting out too big. You need to do this whole thing in baby steps."

"If I do it in baby steps, it'll take me exactly twelve years!" Rapunzel said, jumping to her feet. Exasperated and anxious, her small feet began to pace. Pascal had crawled up onto her shoulder to offer her solace. He gave Eugene a look like, 'Look what you did!' "And I _don't_ have twelve years," Rapunzel said. She wound a lock of brown hair around her fingers. It used to be her habit and remained so, despite the color and length change of her hair. "I'm getting officially coronated next month. How will the people of Corona like to have a princess who knows as much as a child?"

"Now Rapunzel, that's _not_ true," Eugene said, jumping up to his own feet. He settled her down with his big hands gently set on her small shoulders and said to her firmly, "You are, without a doubt, one of the smartest, wittiest, most resourceful people I have ever known." He remembered from her big back-and-forth guilt/not guilt about their trip with her 'mother'; he knew she could be rendered indecisive and confused and deflated by self-doubt. He said, "You have what I consider a bigger strength than just book smarts—you have _street_ smarts, and I happen to think that those come into handy more often outside than whether or not you know how a flower grows does."

"I _do know_ how a flower grows," Rapunzel told him. "The seed germinates with the help of a combination of dirt, sun, and water. Their buds form and they produce their own pollen. They'll flower once they have enough sun—"

"See! You have this amazing memory. Also, I don't think I paid enough attention in natural sciences as a kid. Then, I ran away from the orphanage when I was twelve. Who needs to know natural sciences when you're going to become a thief, anyway?" An idea came to his head, though. He let go of Rapunzel and scrambled together a piece of paper with a fancy ink pen. "What else did you learn in that tower?"

"Besides how to sing a magical song for my kidnapper?" Rapunzel tried for humor but failed. She sighed and tucked that stray lock of hair behind her ear as she traveled back through her memories into the hours of boredom from her childhood. Pascal's face screwed up in recalling those boring memories. "Well, besides rereading the botany book, there was my geology book."

Eugene looked up from the list of school subjects he was making. "You've been moaning on and on about not having an education and you voluntarily read books about _geology_?"

Rapunzel shrugged. "Yeah. It was _so_ interesting—I learned about all the different kinds of rocks that make up the earth and all the other materials that make up its structure—"

"I'm adding 'Reading', 'English Literature', 'Grammar', 'Spelling', and 'Debate' to the list besides the 'Geology'," Eugene said. He and Rapunzel shared a love of reading for pleasure, but he couldn't understand how someone opted for rereading a geology book versus diving into the chapters of a literary masterpiece such as Flynnigan Rider. Now, he knew her options were limited, but come on! She had a book for—

"Cooking! You learned cooking pretty well, amiright?" Eugene asked.

"Um, yeah, I guess," Rapunzel said. She sat on the table upon which he was writing, letting her bare legs dangle. "I did all my own cooking from age five onwards. Moth—Gothel trusted me to not burn myself from a young age. Looking back on it though, I'm guessing she just got annoyed that she had to make all my meals and passed the chore on to me as soon as she could. That was when she started leaving me alone some nights."

Eugene silently fumed as he wrote this down. What kind of witch left a five-year-old along in a huge, dark, lonely tower, just so she could run away and live her own life? The pen threatened to snap inside his big fist.

"So," Eugene said, trying to be cheerful, "you learned about chemical reactions and how different substances react to heat, acid, and bases!"

"Yes, I did!" Rapunzel sounded surprised herself.

"All right," Eugene said cheerfully, ready to head on to another subject, "what else did you do? Oh, how about the arts? Do I even need to ask? I could fill out the rest of the list here!"

Rapunzel smiled appreciatively. "Besides my singing, painting, dress-making, and guitar-playing, there's not a whole lot to write down," she shrugged nonchalantly, teasing him.

"'Vocal Training', 'Painting', 'Dress-Making', and 'Mastery of Strings'," he said in a grand voice, narrating his words as he wrote them down. He pointed a finger at her. "Weren't you self-taught to chart constellations?"

"Yes," Rapunzel said. "Gothel never wanted me to know my exact location," she said this in a low voice, looking back on it all now, "so she discouraged me about it and never bought me any books about it. But I remember so many nights when it was just me and Pascal and the fire in the hearth. The stars outside seemed to be companions as well. I learned their positions, their constellations, everything I could without someone actually telling me their names. I gave them their own names, actually."

"See? That's like, totally insane. I mean, who _does_ that?" Rapunzel gave Eugene a look and he said, "Besides you and your creative mind, of course." He sounded off his fingers. "You basically self-taught yourself all this wide range of academic topics. You're disciplined, you're really and truly smart, and you're brave and courageous besides."

Rapunzel gently set his fingers down, though. "Bravery and courage, while excellent things to have, aren't going to help me in the classroom."

"Maybe they aren't helpful when it comes to memorizing information or becoming well-informed on a particular topic," Eugene said, his hand coming to hold hers, "but Rapunzel, you've proven yourself as both street-smart _and_ book-smart. You're a leader; you're undaunted. Sure, you flip-flop between decisions every now and then, but you always make the correct one. If anyone can't see that you're made to be the princess and eventual ruler of this kingdom, then I'll just come out and say it—they must've gotten dropped on their head as a baby!"

"Oh come on, that's a _little_ mean," Rapunzel told him.

"But it's the truth! You are _not_ as ill-qualified as you think you are. You're going to walk into royal training tomorrow and you're going to surprise everyone in there, including yourself," Eugene said.

Rapunzel thought to herself for a moment. She said, "I could recite all _three_ of those books if I wanted to."

"And you understand them, besides!"

"I _did_ chart the stars—and make my own crafts, composed my own music, wrote my own songs—" Rapunzel straightened her back, determined. "I _did_ all those things. Not only that, I can learn _more_ than that."

Eugene leapt to his feet. "Exactly!"

"And I am _not_ starting from scratch, or even at the bottom. I know so many things, I don't know all the things I know!" Rapunzel leapt to her own feet. Pascal, excited as her newly strengthened confidence, squealed in delight. "I'm going to be the princess these people deserve, and I will _not_ fail!"

"Since when have you failed at like, anything?" Eugene said.

Rapunzel smiled at him. "Thanks, Eugene," she said, standing on tiptoes even as she pulled his collar down to kiss him on the cheek. He knew how to cheer her up. She loved him for it, amongst a hundred thousand other things.

"Anytime, Blondie," he said. "Anytime."

 **FLUFF. FLUFF. FLUFF. UNAPOLOGETIC FLUFF.**

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


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